


The Private Games We Play

by pagerunner



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Grog's one-shot, Post-Campaign, and i should not be entrusted with such inappropriate interpretations of game mechanics, the meta is strong with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 06:48:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12648327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: After game night ends, Vex and Percy decide to delve more deeply into what went on during their explorations of a certain tavern cellar. Yes, this means pretty much what you're thinking. Set just after the post-episode-115 one-shot helmed by Grog.





	The Private Games We Play

“Now that was an enjoyable evening.”

Vex laughed when Percy made that pronouncement, tucking her arm into his as they walked away from the game room. Grog was still holding court over the table, long after the story had completed. The last she’d seen of him, he and Scanlan had begun working on a ridiculous song about the mighty dinosaur versus the proud and noble unicorn, and Vax had remained to listen, laughing uproariously over Scanlan’s lyrics. She’d been so glad to see him this happy that she didn’t want to interrupt. She’d only nodded her agreement when Percy announced his own intentions to retire for the night, and headed out along with him, to no one’s surprise. The smile still on Percy's face, though, did surprise her: honest and open, and freer of care than she’d seen it in months.

“You really got into that, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, I actually did. Although not so much as you.” Percy gave her a look. “I thought you might actually charge after Scanlan, the way you reacted when he got to Trinket.”

Her brows drew tight, unconsciously replicating her earlier glower. “He’d have deserved it if I had. _No one_ touches my bear.”

“That was only your imaginary bear,” Percy pointed out. “Trinket himself is just fine upstairs.”

“I’m going to be keeping an eye out anyway. I don’t want Scanlan getting any ideas. And really, _how_ did he roll so high on deceiving me? Shouldn’t those numbers only go so high?”

“This is Scanlan we’re talking about. Trustworthiness is not exactly his strong suit.”

“And math isn’t Grog’s. I am positive Scanlan was getting away with things. Unfair, sneaky things.”

“To be fair, we got away with a few things ourselves.” Percy leaned closer. “We did sneak off into the cellar together, didn’t we?”

Vex thought back to the story’s start—a tall order, when her head was full of werewolves and unicorns and a gnome who deserved a good thumping—and remembered where it all began. The thought of her tavern exploration with Percy made her smirk. “Mmm. We did.”

“Imagine what all we might have been getting up to in there.”

“Mischief, most certainly.” Vex’s eyes twinkled. “Too bad we didn’t roleplay that entire scene. We could have truly scandalized my brother.”

“Dear gods. One word of you in flagrante delicto and he’d have put a stop to the entire game.”

“He could certainly have _tried,”_ Vex scoffed, then laughed. “But think about it. We—our characters, I mean, in the game—we had all of our actual supplies, didn’t we? So we had plenty of options. I had my rope of entanglement, you had Manners…”

Percy let out a choking laugh. “I wonder how _that_ would have played out,” he said. “Would we have had to roll initiative first?”

“Probably.”

“And would there have been checks to see whose…grappling methods…were more effective?”

“Among other things.”

“Well, going by what I saw on your sheet—although it was difficult to read Grog’s handwriting—”

“He is making progress, though,” Vex put in on his behalf. “He’s trying very hard.”

“Still, if it comes down to a contest of strength between us, I might win out,” Percy warned her.

Vex sniffed. “Maybe, but I’m the stealthier one.” She positioned herself so that when she stepped forward, she also started backing him toward the nearest room. “I might still get the drop on you.”

True to her word, as soon as they crossed the threshold, she kicked the door shut.

Vex had no idea what this room was meant to be for. She found much of Scanlan’s mansion frankly inexplicable. For now, at least, it was serving a convenient purpose: a place for the two of them to avoid public view, if only just. She ignored the clutter of couches and tables and crates, except to wonder, fleetingly, _Magical mansions have storage?_ , before she fixed her gaze upon Percy again. Even in the dim room, his eyes were bright, and he looked like he was breathing faster. Like he realized he’d been caught.

Vex smiled.

“Do I get advantage for that move?” she asked lightly. “Is that how the game’s supposed to work?”

“Something like.” His eyes sparked. “This could work out to be quite a competition.”

“We’ll have to be smart about it, though. We don’t want to attract too much attention. Our scene happened in a cellar, remember? It might be private to a point, but we’re not _that_ far away from the others.” They weren’t, either, even in real life. She pointed in the general direction of the game room. “All that separates us from getting caught is a few feet of distance and a door. Anyone can open a door.”

“Well, that part’s debatable.”

“So maybe the best way isn’t to get fancy about it. Maybe quick and dirty is the plan.”

There was definitely color rising in his face now, but he answered by stepping up closer. When she draped her hands over his shoulders, he wound his arms around her, and one hand began making its way opportunistically downward after a very pleasant slide along the small of her back. “Just how dirty are you thinking, Vex?”

Gods, but she loved it when his voice dropped that low. Vex wriggled enough to encourage that exploratory hand into place on her backside. “Maybe right here,” she breathed, “up against the door? Pretend it’s the door between the cellar and the tavern upstairs?”

Percy’s breath caught at that. “Could get noisy,” he said, but it wasn’t a protest. “The other…patrons…might notice if it rattles.”

Vex grinned, tilting her head up. “They _are_ magical doors. I mean, the tavern owner is very particular about protecting his larder. Should be able to withstand a lot.” She nipped at his lower lip to feel him squirm before whispering, “Want to put it to the test?”

He didn’t answer, exactly, but he seized her with satisfying force, kissed her soundly while she was cinched up against him, and then with a full-body _thump,_ drove her up against the door.

Even around the thrilling shock of it, Vex did have a few moments of wondering whether Scanlan had extended his soundproofing efforts beyond the bedrooms after her last round of furniture-breaking sex with Percy. Soon enough she found she absolutely did not care. Still, she did have a role to play here, and that required a certain flavor of dialogue.

“Percy,” she gasped, as he started tugging her leggings and underclothes down. She tried to sound as if she were scandalized. Her involuntary grin probably belied it. “If anyone else comes down here…”

“Our friends know better than to interrupt us, I dearly hope.” She lifted her feet one by one to help him take off her boots and tug the clothes free. “And if Sc…the tavern owner decides to put his nose in, well…”

He tossed her things aside and stood back up.

“It’s not _his_ goods I’m interested in,” he told her.

Vex suppressed a laugh at that line, but she went along. “Well, to be fair, I might at least want to see about sampling the wine when we’re done. But for now…” She let her fingertips trail down his stomach before turning her hand around and cupping him suggestively just below. “I’m much more interested in tasting this.”

“Tasting…?”

This time, it was Vex’s turn to spin him around and shove him against the door, and she tugged his trousers partway down before going to her knees.

From the sounds of it—she was admiring other things entirely, and wasn’t looking up—his head had just thunked back against the door as he gasped. Vex grinned with satisfaction and curled her fingers around him, skin to skin this time. He was already pleasingly hard—he was always so responsive to her—but the feel of him swelling against her touch made her squeeze her thighs tight against a flush of her own pleasure. “Remember, Percy,” she murmured. “No shouting.”

With that she slid her hand down to the base of his cock, teasing along the length with her thumb before enveloping him with her mouth.

To his credit—and mostly because one hand had flown up, assuredly to stifle himself—he didn’t cry out. But the groan he made in its place was so unmistakably carnal that Vex’s body responded in kind, and that sudden stab of heat in her belly made her moan, too, completing the circuit: one person’s arousal only stoking the other’s. Percy’s free hand tangled in her hair, which heightened it more. It also gave her something of an idea.

They’d done this enough times that she trusted him to stay more or less in place, and so as she continued working him over with lips and tongue and fingers, her other hand stopped bracing his hip and slid down between her own legs.

It took Percy a few moments to notice. Something, though, got his attention: maybe the break in her rhythm as she started to rub at herself, maybe the involuntary little noise she made around him. Whatever it was that made him look down, it also made him make another strangled moan. He stuttered out a question. “Vex, are…are you…?”

She pulled back enough to peer up at him. He was already a sight: glasses askew, sweat beading on his forehead, lips parted to pull in short, shaky breaths. Vex made a teasingly questioning sound, at least as much as she was able with her mouth so occupied. Percy, though, had learned what that sound meant, and that sound meant _I’m not helping you out until you use your words._ He took a deeper breath and asked in a voice gone dark and rough all the way through, “Are you touching yourself?”

Vex gave him one more good suck, making his whole body jolt, before she drew back and replied, “What, do you want to see?”

“Oh, fuck,” he replied helplessly, which was not an answer but which—as ever, when his cultured voice went so profane—was delightful nonetheless. As a reward, such as it was, she sat back on her heels and spread her hands, watching his gaze track down to see every inch of her exposed skin. His unattended cock twitched.

“Well,” Vex said, realizing just how hoarse her own voice had gone. “If you’re going to look at me like _that,_ I think we need to make a decision about what happens next.”

“What do you…”

“Do I keep going with this”—she tapped the subject of her sentence with one finger, since it was _right_ there—“since you’re clearly enjoying yourself? Or do you want this, too?” She dropped her hand down again and stroked herself instead, listening to his unmistakable sound of want. “Or do you even _get_ to be the one to choose? Should it be me? Or do we leave it up to chance?”

He didn’t reply that time. He just stared. Vex met it head-on while she reached into the pocket of the short jacket she was still wearing, and held something up with glistening fingers.

“I think this might help settle it,” she told him.

The little gem-like object in her hand was multi-sided and richly hued, with inscriptions on every surface. Even as preoccupied as he was, Percy obviously recognized it. He gaped at it, then at her.

“That’s…that’s a die,” he said. “You took one of the dice from the game table? For _this_?”

She tossed her hair back and said archly, “Let’s just say I stole it from another table at the tavern—”

“Which is to say you stole it from Grog and we will both be paying for that in ridiculous ways later.”

“Or maybe, in character”—she stressed the words enough to shut him up—“I got it from that mysterious long-haired man everyone learned the rules from. Who’s to say?” She smirked. “In any case, I’m sure he didn’t teach anybody _this_ rule, but…how about if I roll this, and if it lands on anything from one to ten, you get to decide how we finish this. But if it’s eleven to twenty, I get to have my wicked way with you however I want.” She let the die fall into her palm and clasped her fingers around it. “It’s even odds. Perfectly fair.”

“Fair, she says,” Percy murmured, even though he was staring as speculatively at her hand as he had been other regions of her body just moments before. He’d bought into this, even if he wasn’t going to say it. “Halfway through getting me off, she calls this plan fair.”

“That’s because it is. I’m going to roll it.”

“Just do it _quickly_ , please.”

Vex winked at him, shook the die within the cage of her fingers, then released it with a flourish. The die tumbled onto the floorboards, rolling in a slightly erratic path until it came to a rest with a number facing up. Vex read it and crowed in victory. Percy had to flick down one magnifier, but when he made it out, he said on a rueful laugh, “Twenty. Of course.”

Vex knew her smile had gone absolutely devilish by the time she stood. She shed her jacket and trailed her fingers along his length one more time before whispering, “Take the rest of your clothes off, Percy.”

He kept holding her gaze as she stepped back to find a seat on the nearby sofa. There, she let her hand fall suggestively between her thighs. “Go on,” she said, waving the other hand in imperious encouragement. “I want to see the rest of you.”

“Seems a bit backwards in priority,” Percy said dryly.

“Humor me, darling.”

He did this time, and did his best to make something of a show of it, despite the awkward stage of his partial derobing. The waistcoat and shirt went first, whereupon Vex took a moment to appreciate the roll of his shoulders as he shrugged off the soft linen. Then he began shedding the lower layers. After a quick glance up at her, as if waiting for a prompt—she gave it, with a twirl of one finger—Percy turned around to give her an unobstructed rear view as he bent to get his pants and shoes out of the way.

Vex knew a golden opportunity when she saw one. She got back up and delivered a teasing swat to one cheek—and that was a lovely little sound he made in response—before she pressed herself up against him. The thin layer of her shirt remained between them, but she knew from his sigh that he could still feel every bit of her warmth. “Now,” she murmured. “Go lie down for me, on that couch.”

“Vex…”

“On your back, darling.” She kissed it before turning him around, removing his glasses, and setting them safely aside. “I’ll take good care of you.”

He watched her a moment, obviously turning over thoughts and ideas of his own, but a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth, too, and he went to take her vacated seat. Vex followed, standing over him. She let her hand drop to his shoulder, and he moved easily under her guiding touch when she nudged him, turning and lying lengthwise on the wide, armless sofa. He went on watching her intently as she knelt above him, her knees bracketing his hips. Vex hummed, enjoying her view.

“You’re gorgeous like this, you know that?” she asked.

“Flatterer,” he replied, but he did sound pleased. He also reached up, angling for her shirt buttons. Vex caught his hands before they reached the vicinity of her breasts, though, which surprised him.

“Ah, ah,” she said. “You’ll get those later if you’re very good.”

“Vex,” he said, but she cut him off again.

“I rolled a twenty, darling,” she said mildly. “So for now…hands above your head.”

He took a moment to take that in, but he still obeyed, his long arms stretching far enough that his hands dangled off the end of the sofa. He laughed low in his throat, as if he couldn’t quite believe how much he was going along with. “If I’d known a simple dice roll could confer this much power, I’d have— _oh._ ”

Whatever exactly he’d have done went unspoken. Vex had just reached down to grasp him again, carefully angling him before she rocked down. The pressure so easily parted her that she gasped, realizing that as much as she’d still been tempted to tease him, she was far too ready to wait. So she kept bearing down until he slid partway inside, and inexorably deeper still, until their hips drew fully flush. The feeling of these first few moments was still so intense that despite her earlier words of caution about noise, she let herself moan aloud. She couldn’t entirely stop herself from doing it, to be honest. The aching stretch of him was _perfect._

“Oh, gods, Percy,” she breathed, giving herself a moment. “It may have been fun pretending, but this…”

Oh, _this_. The was the reality of it, beyond all the teasing and the innuendo. It was like the difference between planning a battle and the electric energy of the fight. The way her muscles tensed and trembled, the little shocks of sensation when she shifted her hips and felt him move inside her, the way he reacted when she squeezed her muscles just _so_ …

Vex listened to his own badly restrained moan, reaching out to slide her hands up his chest and feel the sound reverberating there, too. When she pulled her palms back down, she let her fingernails scrape along his skin. Percy’s elbows bent at that, his hands clenching around the end of the cushion, and his hips thrust hard, making Vex shout outright. Then the sound bubbled over into delighted laughter. “Oh, do that _again,”_ she said.

“What was that,” Percy hoarsely replied, “about staying _quiet,_ Lady Vex’ahlia?”

She laughed once more, need and want making such heat pulse between her thighs that for a moment she couldn’t coherently reply. Then she did find the words, and she said them as emphatically as the situation demanded. “ _Fuck_ being quiet.”

Percy’s eyes glinted, something deliciously subversive stealing over him. “Then fuck waiting for _later,_ too,” he said, and reached up suddenly to yank at her shirt collar.

Vex gasped, startled and off-balance, as the top two buttons popped off. Percy took one good, hungry moment to dwell on the shadows between her breasts, then he shifted enough to push himself upright, almost unseating her. “Percy,” she breathed, affecting shock, but she couldn’t hide feeling thrilled at the turn. “Now _that_ is taking initiative.”

He chuckled low in his throat as he set about undoing the next few buttons. Vex hurried to help him. They were both being so hasty that they bumped into each other, fumbled, tore off another button and set Vex to giggling again, but soon enough they’d succeeded, and Percy slid his hands beneath her loosened shirt to gather her close the very first moment he could. Vex leaned eagerly into it, breasts brushing against his chest, lips meeting his throat and jaw and at last his mouth, and she kept on moving her hips until Percy started to gasp into the kiss. She levered herself up again, preparing to pick up the pace.

One of his hands suddenly slid back around between them. Constricted as the space may have been, he still managed to get his fingers exactly into the sweet spot. Vex’s eyes widened. Percy, using an expression he’d borrowed from her, winked. And before Vex had any chance to do anything else, he started up a quick, flickering rhythm. It made her wriggle and squirm, chasing the pressure, and then, all at once, the building pleasure flashed into all-consuming fire. She gave a full-body shudder when her release took her, and the helpless clenching of her muscles around him pulled Percy right along with her.

In the end, his orgasm was heralded with a low, guttural groan. Her own was announced with an unrestrained cry. But for whatever it was worth, both sounds were muffled soon enough by a long and wonderfully indecent kiss, and frankly, Vex thought, if anyone had overheard that—or had tried on purpose to listen in—they deserved to know _exactly_ how much fun the two of them were having with each other, and how much they were not willing to share. Unlike the game they’d started with tonight, this game was meant for two and two alone.

She looked across the room at the die still on the floor, and couldn’t help but smile.

—

“So,” Vex said later, comfortably curled beside Percy on that much-abused couch. “That was _also_ an enjoyable evening.”

Percy let out a low hum of agreement. He was only slowly returning to being verbal, although she couldn’t really blame him. She took a moment to consider their surroundings, fleetingly imagining it again as the tavern cellar that they’d stolen away to for this illicit rendezvous. Then she returned to her husband, who had no eyes for anything in the room but her.

No matter what scenario they were experimenting with, she thought, that was exactly as it should be.

“We ought to try this role-playing thing more often,” she mused.

"Hmm." He sleepily thought that over. "Getting ideas?"

She made her own little affirmative hum. “Seems like there'd be so many possibilities. Still, this was a good start. Even if it didn’t go exactly according to plan.”

“I suppose it didn’t,” Percy said, sounding not at all apologetic. “But I’m finding these days that most plans are overrated.”

“And the rules of the game?”

“ _Definitely_ overrated.”

“Oh, they aren’t all useless,” Vex said, amused. “If you think about our how our characters were drawn up, the stats at least weren’t wrong. Yours looked especially on point.”

He looked slantwise at her. “You got a look at mine, too?”

“I did. And I will happily verify every bit of your dexterity score.”

“Mmm.” His tone was verging on smug now. “Really.”

She traced her fingertips atop his hand. “Really. Such nimble fingers you have, Lord de Rolo.” She paused to enjoy another shiver of pleasure at the memory before adding, “I’m pretty sure Grog miscalculated some part of it, though. How did you get a statistic higher than 20?”

“Oh, well. There are ways.”

She laughed under her breath. “I have to ask, then. As much fun as we’ve been having with this game, and since I’d love to go for another round…”

He lifted his eyebrows. Vex walked her fingertips up his chest and tapped thoughtfully before she asked, “Those Second Wind and Action Surge skills sounded promising. Are those accurate to real life, too?”

Percy laughed, pulled her closer, and murmured, “How about the two of us give it a try?”

And when Vex wholeheartedly agreed, they did, repeatedly and at length, for the entire rest of the night.


End file.
